Mysteries of Asia: Lost Temples of India

The Mysteries of Asia three-part video series was originally produced for the Learning Channel. During this segment, historians and others examine temples built in India more than 1,000 years ago. They remain quite intriguing, though today's tourists rarely visit them. Records reveal that trained elephants had to drag millions of stone blocks to help erect these structures.

The program notes that due to the temples' size, the U.S. Senate, Versailles, the Houses of Parliament, and St. Paul's Basilica in Rome could all fit within a single one of them.

Michael Bell narrates as footage and animated maps are used to help viewers learn more about what these ancient structures look like and why they were built.

27 Comments / User Reviews

This is about the question raised about the worship of the Lingam. In my humble opinion, from what I understand, the Supreme Conciousness or Brahman, split into Purush and Prakriti or male and female to facilitate creation. The Lingam represents the male energy and the yoni,(or the base on which every Lingam must rest) represents the female energy. Thus the Lingam which every hindu prays to is a symbolic form of God's creative power and the moment of creation.
On an interesting note, Hindus believe that the male is Conciousness and the female is energy, male is the intent and female is the power, the male is passive whereas the female is active. The western philosophies are completely opposite.

Even I have come across few phrases which are partially incorrect, But I appreciate the efforts u have put to bring them to us. I suggest u read a book named "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahamsa Yoganandha. This has unveiled the secrets of indian culture. Great people like Bodhidharma who have laid the foundation for Chinese civilization is also from South India.

This documentary shows the advantage of being a foreigner commenting about the Kings, Temples, Architecture, lifestyle of India. Any non- Indian or Indian origin raised out of the country will definitely get incorrect ideas after watching this. I certainly appreciate the pains taken by the narrator in bringing out this video. However, I really wish there was more inspection done before mentioning a few facts about Hinduism, Lord Shiva and the sculptors on Kajuraho temple. There is always a lot of criticism about the many Gods in Hinduism. For those who really want to understand please read this : Hinduism is not just a religion that was formed by one particular person. It is the way of life. It is Sanatana Dharma. The greatest advantage and the disadvantage are that - You are a not forced into some particular set of stringent rules (Rules came at a later stage). You are given all possibilities to understand the Ultimate truth. Sanatana Dharma tells you what and how to do. It does not compel you. It is as simple as it is complex. You need great understanding of your inner self to appreciate the forms of Hinduism. Hindus see God in everything right from the tiniest blade of grass to the largest mountain. We cannot have the brilliant West to understand this simple concept, how can we expect them to understand the glory of our Temples,Kings, Architecture and life style ??

Yeah, your comment confirms my longstanding intuition. I've always thought the structure of Hinduism to be sublime rather than so fixated on various gods in that all of our actions, desires, experiences etc etc are elements that are often characterized as manifestations of said gods. The western ideal of god is no god but god and to me this has always been a simplistic ideal. It would be better to say there is no god, there is only life. Or as I say, there is only consciousness as it is the very ground of our being. But despite the errors in the narration I only had the slightest glimpse into temples beyond the Taj Mahal, so this doc is a welcomed piece of film..

marundalunar
- 03/14/2012 at 00:11

for you to understand the architecture in India you should research your life .Example no of Gods.It is so many forms of ONE God.The kolam is not for luck,it is rice powder which feeds the so many insects.These insects prevent the harmful animals like snakes enter the house .It should be seen in the context of no lights .So understand the culture

Ling is one of the senses that we come with. To be one with GOD we have to conquer these senses and Kama is one of the strongest one. It had made one of the greatest ones to lose their stance; which is a form of test to GOD's path. It is around us within us. The only way we can control is through the words of GOD. So if one only goes there to be aroused; you have failed miserably. But if you look beyond this; you'll find peace, solace and pray to GOD; please hold my hand and lead the way. Please take me out of this chakra of temptations. I am a Sikh and that is how this sense becomes under control. For the rest, they can get lost in this. They will never find their way to the TRUE ONE. Hope this cools you down and open another window to your soul.

western view of Hindu gods..One myth on other about lingam and reason for worshiping these Gods. Lingam is not equal to phallus. Hindus don't worship to keep Gods happy who intern bring good fortune. They dont see body as origin of sin and don'g find sex as anti religion. Faith in good actions is stresses not faith in salvation by belief in redemption.

Kajuraho is not in south india...it is a part of madhya pradesh and was built by chandela rajputs...and it is no way related to rajaraja's empire...besides you dont find such erotic sculptures in madurai,tanjore or srirangam temples of rajaraja n rajendra chola...(with an exception of few traces of romantic scultpures) !

Awesome doc!! Heading to India very shortly--Northern India. I would like to visit RajahRajah's temples as they intrigued me intensely. Laughed Out Loud at 41:00 ("This is where Europe learned that it may be a good idea to bathe more than once a year"). Thanks for this doc!

To Hunter: Also the scenes depicted inside Rajaraja's temple were not orgies, they were scenes of his court and family life. It is typical Western Freudian eroticism-obsession to label everything Eastern as being immoral eroticism and sexualization of society, hence they were deemed worthy of being subjugated.

To Hunter : You haven't read up on Hindu philosophy have you? It is far more than mere ritual and vibrancy. There are complex philosophies behind everything. Time for you to explore the Devi Mahatmaya, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana+Mahabharata...

i want to thank who did this.by the way INDIA is the greatest country..in other western countries when they were discovering the letters, here we had great poets, the poets were not only intelligent in literature but also was great in science...a small example--the scientists found there is a thing called atom probably a 100 yrs ago(for instance)and they found that it can be split very recently,but tamil poet ovvaiyar,1000 years ago wrote "anuvai pilandhu yel kadalai pugutthu kuruga tharitha kural" in order to appreciate the power of thirukural..which meant thirukural may be very small like atom but when u split it, there reveals the energy of 7 mighty oceans..so she had knowm there is a thing called atom and they know that it can be split......PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

great documentary..i want to thank who did this.by the way INDIA is the greatest country..in other western countries when they were discovering the letters, here we had great poets, the poets were not only intelligent in literature but also was great in science...a small example--the scientists found there is a thing called atom probably a 100 yrs ago(for instance)and they found that it can be split very recently,but tamil poet ovvaiyar,1000 years ago wrote "anuvai pilandhu yel kadalai pugutthu kuruga tharitha kural" in order to appreciate the power of thirukural..which meant thirukural may be very small like atom but when u split it, there reveals the energy of 7 mighty oceans..so she had knowm there is a thing called atom and they know that it can be split......PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

maybe you could do something about the terrible poverty there, and this doc is just racist, there are bath houses all over the place in Britain, been there since the Romans, not everyone wants a bath in the local swamp, do you actually live in India? if not why not?

mvairavan
- 09/17/2010 at 23:13

Being born on madurai,i can surely assure that the temple in madurai is just far beyond imagination. There is a building next to that temple which is supposed to be the hall for dance and other cultural events is built with 1000 pillars supporting it. Just think of the size of it then.
And one more point which is not mentioned in this documentary about the tanjore temple, one part of that temple's building is built in such a way that it does not produce any shadow on the ground - Over a 1000 years ago!!!

Just another living example of Marvelous India.
Imagine, these are just the ruins of what have been left over. Surely, there should have been many such world class monuments of ancient India which were unfortunately destroyed in the series of invasions in Indian history.

I'm amazed they (the victorians) didn't trash the temples... I guess it would have been to much work. I find the jain and buddhist traditions of india more insightful, although you can't fault Hinduism for lack of color or strength of passing the test of time.

wow looks interesting ^^ definably more appealing than an aztec temple.... and they seem to be on a larger scale than anything in greece or rome. The orgies depicted on the walls is interesting though :P.